The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines by Shohreh Aghdashloo Page A

abdicate and for Khomeini to return. They naively believed that Khomeini was going to be their Gandhi—which time and history would prove wrong.
    The Shah had left the country to Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister of Iran and one of the most distinguished. Still, the rumor was that the Ayatollah was returning to Iran via Air France.
    Prime Minister Bakhtiar called for a peaceful pro-Shah demonstration at Baharestan Square, the same square where I had gone to see the minister with my puff pastries. My father asked me to stay away from the demonstrations, knowing I had been out at every chance. I had begun doing so ever since the Shah had left because I was curious to see what a revolution was all about. And here I was, now a part of it.
    My father knew me well and was genuinely afraid for me. He kept saying that he was more afraid of what I might do than of what my three brothers might do. Aydin, too, wanted me to stay away from the streets and the rioters. But history was unfolding before my eyes. Witnessing people en masse, marching on the streets, putting their lives in danger, to make a change, was electrifying. I felt I was in the midst of collective minds and a kind of oneness and a civil disobedience that bore all the ingredients of a Shakespearean tragedy.
    I heard them out but ultimately carried on with my actions, because I found it so meaningful and exciting. I truly believed in the monarchy and thought it was the best form of government, at least for Iran, so I screamed my opinions out loud with the rest.
    ONE DAY I left home with Mahdi a little after Aydin had gone to work and headed toward the crowds. Aydin worked tirelessly until the last days of the Shah’s reign, and when the queen’s office was shut down, he decided to work on his own as an artist. Saeed, our driver, ran after Mahdi and me and asked why we had not taken the car. We told him that we were going to see a friend in the neighborhood and did not need it. We then walked to Tajrish Square and tried to catch a cab. No driver wanted to go anywhere near the demonstration. We paid one cabdriver a lot of money to take us as close as he could. Still, it took us half an hour on foot to get to the demonstration, through the alleys of my childhood neighborhood.
    Thousands of pro-Shah Iranians, men and women dressed up for the occasion, walked miles on Shah Avenue for Baharestan Square. There were others, mostly bearded men and women in hijabs , all dressed in black shouting, “Allah Akbar, Khomeini Rahbar,” as they angrily shook their fists at us.
    A line of masked policemen, armed to the teeth, holding on to their see-through shields along the edge of the pavements, protected the peaceful demonstrators—like us—from the fanatics, who were growing more and more hostile.
    We joined the peaceful demonstrators but with difficulty, having to cut through both the angry demonstrators and the chain of armed policemen.
    The crowd took us to the square and Prime Minister Bakhtiar appeared. People cheered, many booed, but all soon quieted down, waiting for him to speak.
    He started with a poem by Hafiz: “God be with the one—who has traveled with caravans of our love. . . .”
    He paused before the second verse, and somebody screamed, “He means God be with the bloody Shah, you idiots.” The crowds started shoving and pushing. Some shouted “Death to the Shah and the filthy monarchists” while others were screaming and crying. Then somebody threw the first brick, which was soon followed by hundreds of them. The scene was like a raging coliseum, only this time it was brother against brother.
    A half-broken brick hit me on the forehead. Mahdi rushed me to the nearest road-going emergency ambulance, where I was lucky to receive only eleven stitches.
    I got home late that evening and Aydin was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Shohreh,” he said. “You must stay home away from the trouble, or leave Iran.”
    I was shocked at